When reading research reports, you will encounter many
articles in which the researchers will talk as if they have discovered
something definitive. The researchers' assertions typically reduce to
the claim that "the data confirm our expectations, so now we have
proof that our research hypotheses were correct." Resist the temptation
to bow down in front of such researchers and swallow hook, line, and sinker
everything and anything they might say, simply because they have used
fancy statistical techniques when analyzing their data. Remember that
inferences are always involved whenever (1) confidence
intervals are placed around means or differences between means and (2)
null hypotheses involving one or two means are evaluated. Nothing is
proven
by any of these techniques, regardless of how bold the researchers' claims
might be.